


Over Troubled Water

by CastellanKurze



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game), Nier Gestalt | Nier
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastellanKurze/pseuds/CastellanKurze
Summary: The twin androids Devola and Popola wander through a world bereft of any comfort but one another.  How does one fill the void of an endless existence, when existence offers no relief from one's travails?  Maybe a lucky find will provide Popola an opportunity for something to distract from the thankless drudgery.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Over Troubled Water

# NieR: Automata

Dirt crunched under the two sets of boots; the only sound they'd heard for hours apart from the wind. If any animals had lived in the area, it seemed like they had long ago vacated the place for new digs. It would have been nice to hear a bird sing, at least.

The tracks went on endlessly, kilometer after kilometer evaporating beneath their feet. No trains ran nowadays. Here and there the metal rails bent into twisted wreckage where an explosive had gone off, or where an energy cannon and left a furrow in the ground. It was hard to gauge how old the scars were. None of them smoldered or reeked in anyway, but the fact the local wildlife was still absent meant the battle couldn't have been too long ago. She guessed a month.

Here and there, patches of greenery had managed to spring up around the rocks that lined the track, breaking through the blacktop of the roads that crossed the railway. Dilapidated buildings lined the route as well, some of them likewise bearing scars from the battle. Some had been reduced to little more than the bare frame.

There was a soft whistle from nearby, several notes in succession. She glanced towards her sister, and Devola shrugged when she caught her eye. "Just trying to break up the monotony," she said defensively. Popola smiled briefly and gently waved an encouraging hand, but Devola didn't try again. The brief attempt to fill the void of sound had only seemed to intensify the sensation of isolation.

When they finally met the picket, the resistance member had surely seen them coming and taken the time to take note that they carried no weapons openly and made no attempt to be stealthy, but still carried her rifle as she stepped out from the makeshift defenses to meet them. Her gaze was analytical, lips pursed. " _You're_ our relief?" she asked, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

"That's us," Devola confirmed, bending over with a soft grunt to put her hands to her knees and flexing her legs after the long walk.

"May we come in? It's been a long walk," Popola, said, folding her hands.

The android woman didn't answer immediately, stepping back and taking one hand from her rifle to touch her ear. She turned her head and spoke softly, but the twins had sharp hearing even by the standards of the modern day, and both of them heard her mutter "better come out. You're gonna want to see this."

Popola swished her tongue behind her teeth, but ultimately pressed her lips together and said nothing. Her sister's thoughts must have run along similar lines, for she, too, remained silent.

In time, a male android wearing body armor came walking out to meet them, a handful of others trailing in his wake. The group looked like they had seen some rough times - apart from damage to the armor and camo gear they wore, several sported injuries that had been patched in hurried fashion. Some of the wounds were so deep that the sisters could see the bare metal of the endoskeleton through the gaps in the synthflesh.

The commander stopped a short distance from the pair and folded his arms, his face holding the kind of expression reserved for occasions when you stepped in something a moose had left behind, or when a stubby called your mother a jackhammer. "So they sent you two, huh?" he growled.

The pair glanced briefly at one another. Popola did a hasty search on whether this was someone they had met before, but came up blank. "Yep," Devola said, speaking first. 

"We'd be happy to begin as soon as possible," Popola added, trying to sound nonthreatening.

The commander didn't move. "You brought your own tent?" he questioned. Devola knocked a fist against the rucksack she carried. "And your own water?" he asked. Popola held up a canteen that hung from her hip. He stood there, stewing quietly, and for a moment Popola wished they were following the tracks once more, with at least the sound of dirt crunching to fill the air. Finally the commander relented with a grunt. "No excursions without an escort," he said, turning his back on the pair and starting off.

"Don't do us any favors or anything," Devola muttered under her breath as they followed him in. Popola glanced towards the nearest of the soldiers, but nobody gave any sign they'd heard her twin's grousing.

The resistance camp was an open square between several buildings, the avenues blocked off with defenses and more pickets. Tents and tarps filled the open square, the surrounding buildings utilized for more important business. Heads turned all around them as the pair entered in the company of the welcoming party, a few whispers flying at their sudden - and given the reaction of the picket and the commander himself, unannounced - arrival. 

There was an empty spot in one corner where they were allowed to set up their tent, pitching their belongings inside with a matched set of relieved groans to finally have the weight gone. "I'm going to find the medical station," Popola said once they'd finished.

Devola turned to look at her, eyes wide with concern. "Do you need an escort?" she asked, her tone worried.

Popola tried not to smile.

"Remember to take plenty of water. And don't stay out too late," her twin pressed, until Popola's attempt to keep her face straight failed and she laughed. Devola smiled and reached out to pat her sister's face. "I'm gonna find out where they keep their spares. See you back here when they change shifts, sis."

"Alright," Popola agreed.

The resident stitcher accepted her intrusion simply, if a bit brusquely, and Popola quickly found work assisting in the repair of injured limbs and damaged systems, spending several hours in particular with a complicated eye-replacement procedure. Her sister flitted in and out a time or two, bringing needed parts from storage. When the shift changed and the pair of them retired to their tent, both of them switched off hard for eight hours.

The next day they went underground, wading through muck to reinstall piping to the building the resistance cell used as a nerve center. The day after that they were obligated to climb one of the local towers, Devola hanging out in space with her sister clinging to her feet as she replaced a circuit board on an antenna. Like most strongholds of the resistance, a thousand little tasks had been left undone over time, and the two visitors quickly found them heaped upon their shoulders. Whenever she had time, Popola retreated to the medical station. The corpsman spoke little, leaving her to her own thoughts. It soon became clear that it was no accident that the pair of them had been directed here, as the number of injuries had clearly exceeded the loan medical officer's ability to keep up. A small wonder that the man was so terse.

"You shouldn't wear a flower in your hair when you're working on a patient," were the most words he ever said to her at one time.

"It's been treated so that nothing will fall off," she replied. She could have explained the process she and her sister had worked out, but he merely grunted acceptance and went back to his own task. She suppressed a frown and returned her attention to her work, removing shrapnel from a wound that was so old the synthflesh had grown back in around it and become discolored. It was a lengthy and delicate process, made more so by the fact her patient kept twitching whenever she jostled one of the shards with her calipers. "Are you sure you don't want me to deaden your arm?" she asked for the third time since beginning.

"I'm fine, don't you worry about my systems," the soldier said acidly, her hand clenching. "Just keep working."

"Alright, just try to hold still," Popola said patiently.

"Why don't you worry about-ngh," she growled as Popola pulled a shard a bit more hastily than she really should have. Silently chastising herself for the breach in her behavior, she spent the next minutes gently sopping up leakage before resuming her work.

An interminable length of time later she finally sealed over the last rent in the android's arm and stood back to let him get up. "Please come back if you're feeling any lingering pain tomorrow, or if the discoloration doesn't seem to be getting better," she advised.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled as he wandered off. Popola didn't watch her go, busying herself with cleaning the station for the next patient.

When she returned to the tent at the end of the shift it was to find Devola sitting on a looted stool, her cheek resting on one hand as she regarded the contents of her rucksack. From the expression on her face, Popola knew something had happened even before her twin looked up to meet her eye. Devola reached into her pack and pulled out a bottle which she tossed to her sister, and as it landed in her hand Popola completed her estimation of what had her sister so upset.

"Someone drank all my booze," Devola confirmed, her face dark.

Popola turned her head, eyes panning across the camp. Nobody looked their way. She closed her eyes and sighed. The thief could have gotten into their things at any point in the past fourteen hours, and it was unlikely that anyone would be willing to step forward to report them. "Maybe we'll find something we can work with for brewing," she temporized.

Devola flipped a tired hand. "Don't worry about it, Po," she said. At the sound of her tone Popola stepped forward and shifted the bottle to her far hand so that she could gently stroke her sister's hair.

The next day they both got pulled off their chosen duties to deal with an oil pump that had broken down. It turned out to be a nine-hour ordeal that necessitated Devola getting down on her belly so that she could get literally head-and-shoulders deep in the machine's inner workings. Once there, she passed the time by describing the myriad ways the pump was the worst-made piece of shit on the face of the planet. "Hey sis?" she asked at one point, interrupting the constant low-energy offensive. "Can you get in here? I need a light."

Popola lay down on her side beside her twin and tried to make herself as narrow as possible, squeezing her head and one arm inside the housing to hold a light on a serpent's nest of wiring.

As they were working, they heard a sharp whistle from behind them.

Devola froze mid-screw turn, inhaling through her nose. "Just trying to break up the monotony, presumably," Popola deadpanned after a moment. It wasn't the best crack she'd ever made, but Devola snorted and suppressed a giggle, returning to work with a grin.

When the job was finally done the pair took turns showering, one dousing herself with cold water and scrubbing furiously to get the stains of oil and grease out while the other stood watch.

The morning after that, Popola spent an hour compiling a list of everything the medical station was short on - which was most things, it turned out. Fortunately, the archival programming in her bracelet made the creation of a list a simple matter. Once she had it all saved, she made her way over to the quartermaster's storage to compare lists with Devola and see how much could simply be pulled from stores and how much would need to be freshly ordered.

"Time for the great rundown, huh?" her sister asked when she showed up, rolling her wrist to activate her own bracelet, letting the pair sync up.

"How far in are you?" Popola asked.

"About halfway. That stupid antenna the other day really threw me off," Devola answered. Popola suppressed a sigh. Inventory was best done on the third or fourth day after their arrival when they'd had enough time to get a grip on what a given camp needed, but before they stayed long enough for people to get tetchy about them going through their things. Devola being only half-done with her list made things more difficult as it meant running inventory and compiling orders simultaneously, increasing the time taken and also upping the chance that they'd miss something important.

Nothing for it, however, and the pair of them started with the sections that Devola had had time to give the once-over. Together they matched container after container of android limbs, torso parts, heads, mandibles, fingers, toes, ocular and auditory systems, emergency rations of synthskin and water - four hours seemed to pass by very quickly as the pair worked the storage department over.  
As they worked they were joined by the quartermaster himself - a broad, rugged model suitable for picking up heavy things and putting them down elsewhere. He wasn't as terse as the corpsman, but had little more to offer other than pointers on his own idiosyncratic system of storage. Popola quickly figured out that his preferred method of inventory was 'heavy stuff goes on the bottom' and beyond that mostly shoved things where there was space. A wonder Devola had gotten even half her list put together.

That was a bit unfair, perhaps. Like the corpsman, the quartermaster was working largely on his own in an understaffed second-line camp. The biggest help she and Devola could provide was exactly what they were doing now - looking at everything on the shelves and in the containers and arranging it all in orderly fashion. Fortunately, for any faults he had the android seemed to recognize the lifeline he was being thrown and aided the twins in moving anything that needed more than a slight adjustment. More time elapsed as they worked the storage from top to bottom and grouped things with a better sense of logic - android parts, then parts and tools for non-weapon machines, then weapon parts, then whole weapons, then more general gear, body armor, clothing, and finally a section for 'other,' all arranged in a clockwise direction around the storage space. 

Popola's internal clock told her that nine and a half hours had passed when, in the midst of stocking the 'other' shelves, a glint of metal caught her eye. At some point in the past, a case of some kind had slid off the back of one of the shelves and become caught between the metal and the wall behind. She had to duck her head underneath the shelf above and get her torso into the space, standing on the toes of her boots to reach the forgotten item. Fortunately the thing had a handle by which she was able to grab it and drag it out into the light.

"Found something, Popola?" Devola asked as Popola brushed dust from the black case. It was an odd thing compared to the other containers they'd been dealing with all day, not rectangular or even cylindrical. Instead it was flat on top and bottom and rounded on the sides, larger on one end than the other. The metal parts that had attracted Popola's attention were the trio of clasps that held the case shut, all arranged along one side.

"How long has this been here?" Popola asked in lieu of answering her sister's question, pitching her own query towards the quartermaster.

"Huh. Dunno, yeah? Can't remember seeing it before. Must've been here longer than I have, yeah?" the man replied, scratching at his ear.

Popola knelt and undid the clasps, her systems registering elevated electronic activity in her chest cavity that in androids corresponded to anxiety or anticipation. She flipped open the lid to reveal the contents of the case. It was a sad sight, the wooden face faded, chipped and splintered with age, misuse and disuse. The strings hung loosely from the pegs and bridge, not having felt a hand to tune them in who knew how many turns around the sun.

"Oh. Would you look at that," Devola commented from somewhere behind her.

"Weird looking thing, yeah? What is it?" she heard the quartermaster ask.

"It's a guitar," Popola answered, running her fingertips over the corner of the frame where the face met the curve of the instrument's bottom. "Humans originally made them to make music."

"Oh, like an old-fashioned songbox, yeah? Wonder how one ended up stuck back there. Funny world sometimes, yeah?" the quartermaster mused.

"May I take this off your hands?" Popola asked suddenly, turning back to look at the android.

Now in her field of vision, Devola blinked in surprise. "Wha?" she started to ask.

The quartermaster quit scratching at his ear and frowned. "Don't think so, yeah. Belongs to storage, yeah?"

Faced with a sudden point of opposition she could dig into, Devola rebounded from her confusion and shot the man a look. "You didn't even know it was here," she protested. "Hell, you didn't even know what it _was_."

The big android folded his arms. "Doesn't matter though, yeah? Everything in inventory belongs to the army. Sorry," he said without looking sorry.

"I'll buy it from you," Popola replied without missing a beat.

"What?" Devola yelped.

"Three thousand G, yeah?" the quartermaster answered after a moment's thought.

"You can't be serious," Devola snorted, eyes flaring angrily. "Three thousand? It's an old piece of shit."

"Might be human-made, though, yeah?" the quartermaster replied, unmoved.

"It's a deal," Popola said.

"Sis!"

Popola closed the case and snapped the clasps into place before the quartermaster could rethink the deal. Standing, she clutched the handle of the case and held out her hand, ordering her bracelet to transfer the representative coin from her account to the quartermaster's own.

Devola was at her side in a flash. "Popola, you can't let him take you for that much!" she hissed. Popola looked up into her sister's eyes, seeing the fury there, but also the fear that things were unfolding faster than she was able to grapple with them. Popola opened her mouth to respond, but although she had a vocabulary of over fifty thousand words, in that moment language seemed to fail her and she simply pressed her lips closed, swallowing and shaking her head.

Devola blinked and her eyes widened as she saw her sister's vulnerability. "Kay, well, whatever, we've overstayed our shift anyway," she said, switching instantly to a devil-may-care tone and slinging an arm through the crook of Popola's own. "Let's get outta here, yeah?" she asked with a smirk.

"Sure thing. Good working with you, yeah?" the quartermaster replied, either unnoticing or uncaring of the slight. 

Popola gave her sister a squeeze on the forearm and disentangled herself long enough to head over to the freshly-organized supply racks and snatch up a jar of lubricant. "This is part of our deal," she said quickly as she hastened towards the exit, hoping he wouldn't gainsay-

"Sure, whatever. See you around, yeah," the male android said diffidently.

Devola hastened after her and fell into step as they left the building. "You okay, sis?" she asked, her hand brushing against Popola's own.

Popola caught her sister's fingers and gave her a squeeze. "Yes," she said after a moment, and even saying so seemed to realign her internal systems, shuttering the feeling of instability that had dogged her all throughout the exchange. "I'm sorry for being so impulsive-"

"Popola, it's okay," Devola said softly, returning her squeeze and giving Popola a tap so that she would look at her. "You've gotta have something to break up the monotony, right?" she asked with a smirk. Popola felt a warmth settle in her chest and she smiled back. 

"I guess so," she said.

"I mean, I'd say you could have a drink with me, but I've _seen_ you drunk," Devola teased.

Popola blushed. "Dev..."

"Then again, three thousand G _would_ be worth it to see you hit that guy with a tree-"

"Dev!" Popola cried out.

Devola tapped a fingertip against her chin and looked unrepentant. "You really think you can fix that old piece of junk?" she asked after a moment, dropping her needling for a more serious mien.

Popola chewed slightly at her bottom lip and idly rubbed a hand against the guitar case, fingers gliding over the plastic. "I want to give it a try, at least," she said.

"Well, I believe in you," her sister said in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested the conversation was over. It brought a smile to Popola's face.

She didn't actually touch the guitar for awhile following the sudden purchase. Instead she stashed it in their tent behind their rucksacks and went back to work, delivering the twins' report on the camp's inventory to the perpetually-scowling commander, who accepted it with poor grace.

"Do you have _any_ idea how long these deficiencies are going to take to shore up?" he complained as he scanned the list.

Popola knew the question was little more than an invitation to make herself a target, but couldn't stop herself from giving him an honest answer. "By my estimate, five to seven weeks, depending on the current priority list."

He looked at her, eye twitching. "Get out." She got.

It wasn't until a full day had passed and she and her twin had finished another set of shifts that she finally managed to sit down cross-legged and gently took the battered instrument from its case, laying it across her lap. It was such a pathetic thing. Part of her considered just putting it back in the case. Instead she carefully unstrung the guitar and laid the strings in the bottom of the open case. That done, she unscrewed the jar of lubricant and wet a cloth with which she began to polish the face of the box, making it gleam. Methodically she worked her way around the face, letting it dry as she proceeded on to the curvature of the case, and from there to the back.

Once she'd worked the cloth over the neck she set the guitar back in the case to let it dry. Another full day of work went by before she returned to the project, giving it another coat of the improvised polish and scrubbing at the spots where splinters had stood up

"Shouldn't you be at the repair station instead of playing with toys?" a passing android asked sharply on the third day.

"Preservation of human-made relics is one of my operating directives," Popola replied without looking at her.

The android stared at her for a moment, wrong-footed by a reply that she couldn't easily gainsay, before shrugging a shoulder and walking off, muttering a quiet " _selfish b_ -" under her breath. Popola continued her work polishing the face, staring determinedly down at her hands. Two coats a day for five days, about thirty minutes at a time, and the guitar was soon looking almost passable. Still old, still faded, but no longer the wreck of a thing it had been when she'd found it. When held at the right angle to the sun, it even gleamed a little. 

Next came restringing it, and this she did with extreme caution - if one of the strings snapped she didn't know how to replace it. She set the first of them back in its place and tightened the peg slowly, twanging the string with her nail as lightly as she could, eyes laser-focused on the integrity of the steel. When finally she twitched her thumb and the ring of a perfect E rang in her ears she closed her eyes, feeling her internal systems slowly unknotting. It had taken her almost ten minutes, but the first string was set. Five more to go. She put the guitar away for another day to ensure that stringing it too quickly didn't damage the neck. 

By the time she was finished, a full week had passed since she'd first spied the metal of case's clasps in the inventory. She was getting looks from the androids that passed by and those whose tents were closest to the twins' own, though so long as they remained only looks she ignored them.

"Hey, that old piece of junk cleaned up really good," Devola commented as she sat down beside her.

"Yes. It looks much better," Popola agreed, laying it back in the case and closing it.

"Not ready for its debut?" Devola asked.

"Not quite. I need one more thing," Popola answered.

"You want to leave the camp for _what?!_ " the commander half-roared when she approached him the next day.

"A type of stone, for a personal project," Popola replied.

"And you want one of _my_ soldiers to waste their time looking after you instead of doing their job fighting the goddamned machines, all so you can find a pretty rock?" he asked, dripping sarcasm.

"Your instructions to us when we arrived were not to leave the camp without an escort," Popola replied simply.

His eye twitched. "Just. Get. Out," he snarled. She got.

Fortunately, in the end she didn't have to go too far to find an appropriate kind of stone. In what might have long ago been a museum, before it had been bombed and thoroughly set aflame, she found an agate that had been cut at right angles to form a quarter-shell, displaying its beautiful striations of red and pink. It must have once been used as an eye-catching educational display. Fortunately it was large enough that the android didn't have to be as cautious of her strength as she was with the guitar. With a quiet apology to humans long deceased, her hands snapped the head-sized stone in half, synthetic muscles knotting as she gripped the broken end with her fingertips and broke away a flat piece. 

Her free time for the next few days was spent using the polishing cloth and her bare hands to polish the stone into an approximately triangular shape, the edges rounded rather than pointy. She took exceptional care with said edges, smoothing them down with rhythmic motions of her thumb. In the end she was left with a tiny, flat piece of stone about twice the size of her thumbnail. It had turned out perfectly.

The next day, it was finally time. Despite her best efforts, her internal systems registered elevated levels of heat and tension - human 'embarrassment.' Like a human she contemplated putting the moment off, but when Devola came back from her shift and sat - doing her usual careless crash - and looked expectant, she tightened her resolve. She pulled her legs in to cross them and retrieved the guitar from its case, resting the curve of its box in the gap between her knees. With her left hand she cradled the instrument's neck, careful to keep her touch as light as possible so that her fingertips rested lightly upon the strings. With her left she pinched her pick between thumb and forefinger, setting it to the strings just above the open hole in the guitar's box.

In the nearly two weeks in which she'd worked on the guitar, Popola had opened up a positively ancient program and let it run in the background, searching for everything she knew about music and the methods of play. It had been there, sorting through her databanks and updating her OS one little bit at a time, all while she had focused on her chores of scrubbing and sorting and stitching. It had even dug up a selection of songs she hadn't realized she'd remembered. She deliberated for a few moments, frowning, and instinctively glanced at Devola. Her sister, waiting gamely, offered a smile of encouragement.

Humans would have called it an epiphany, and the other songs faded into the background as she made her choice.

Her hand moved from the neck a bit closer to the box and then she brushed the pick against the first string she wished to use, and seemingly of their own accord her hands played the next few notes in succession before her conscious mind had a chance to realize that the moment had come and gone and she was really playing, music ringing out over the nearby tents. She didn't look - she shut them out, everything but the action of her hands and the attention of her sister dismissed as unworthy of her notice.

It wasn't a fast song, but she didn't feel comfortable enough to sing and so she played the words on the strings instead, giving the guitar the freedom to sing for her in a way the instrument probably hadn't been allowed to do for decades. Despite her fears that the strings would snap, they held firm as she strummed the chorus, notes ringing out perfectly as the music filled the air around them and the usual sullen dreariness of the second-line camp gave way to the crisp melody. Popola's hair brushed against her shoulders as her head bobbed slightly in time with the music she played. Despite her resolve not to sing, her lips moved soundlessly, as if somehow, if she turned her whole body to the effort she could somehow draw out the truth of the song she played, as opposed to merely the notes.

In the corner of her vision she saw Devola rest a cheek against her hand, her eye peeking out from between pinky and ring finger. She was smiling. She knew the song, even if no one else listening recognized a note, and nothing could have made Popola happier at that moment. Abrasive and rambunctious as she could be, her sister was everything to her - a pure light, even in a world of everlasting sun.

A note lingered on the strings, her hands motionless, and Popola nearly panicked at the thought of losing the melody before she realized that she had reached the end of the song, only stopping because there were no more notes to play. She briefly considered wishing she had chosen a longer one, but then dismissed the thought. It had been a perfect choice.

Devola pulled her hand from her cheek and clapped, her smile utterly bereft of her usual ironic twist, her eyes wide. "Sis, that was _perfect_ ," she gushed. Popola considered, replaying her memory of the performance, and concluded that Devola's assessment was factually correct; she had played the song perfectly, without misplacing a single note. But it was more than that, of course, and the praise brought a smile to Popola's face. She tilted the guitar to hold it upright by the neck, the curve of its bottom resting in her lap as she patted the box.

"For a beat-up old piece of junk, it still does its job pretty well, huh?" she asked.

"Old junk is the best junk," Devola confirmed, grinning.

Something crunched in the dirt nearby, and the pair turned their heads to see one of the androids approaching, his steps slow and almost cautious. As he came close he bent his knees and squatted down in front of Popola, his eyes drifting from her to the guitar and back again. "So...humans used these to make music, huh?" he asked.

"That's right," Popola said with a nod.

With her systems relaxed and her focus on her music program at the forefront, she wasn't in the response mode she needed to react quickly enough to the flicker of his hand. By the time her mechanisms were beginning to move, the knife he'd concealed behind his wrist had completed its thrust. There was a quick succession of sharp, metallic twangs as three of the strings snapped, accompanied by a short rasp as the blade cut into the wood of the neck.

"Well, you shouldn't," he said as he rose and turned to leave.

The twins were momentarily paralyzed as a barrage of response programs tried to override each other. Devola sorted through hers first, leaping to her feet with a shout of "what the _hell_ , man?" She started after the android, fists balled, and he turned on one foot to confront her, knife still drawn. Words were exchanged, but Popola wasn't listening.

She stared down at the mortally wounded instrument, the three broken strings laying in chaotic silvery trails over her crossed leggings. She realized a damage alert was running and she looked up to see that when one of the strings had snapped, it had cut into her finger where she'd held the guitar's neck. Her hands were trembling as overlapping responses battled for supremacy. Combat routines flickered and jostled against one another, making her limbs twitch, while her eyelids fluttered from the multitude of emotional routines trying to run simultaneously. Her core temperature spiked sharply, heat sinks activating in a desperate attempt to maintain the android’s equilibrium as self-preservation and attack patterns roared.

There was a quiet snap between her fingers, and she realized that she'd pinched her pick so tightly that the agate had broken into a pair of shards.

With quivering hands and trembling legs, Popola pushed herself to her feet. A distant part of her noted that a crowd had gathered in response to Devola's yelling, curious eyes watching to see how the confrontation would play out. The details were blurred because of the way her tear ducts were overperforming, leaving wet tracks across her face, but she could make out the shape of her sister and the knife-wielding android well enough, and dirt crunched beneath her boot as she took a step forward.

The motion garnered the attention of the pair, and the combat model turned to face her, chin raised. Popola's teeth were clenched, and she realized that she was hissing air through her teeth in an instinctive threat posture.

"Po..." Devola started to warn softly, concern overriding outrage, but Popola had gone well past the point where that emotional reorientation was possible.

"What are you gonna do about it?" the soldier asked contemptuously. "Hit me?"

Three hours later, the camp commander burst into the medical station like a hurricane. "I take my eyes off those _fucking_ interlopers for _two goddamn seconds_ and _this_ is the shit they pull?" he roared. "Where are they?"

"They left two hours ago," the corpsman replied in his standard unflappable tone. "Higher-priority tasks closer to the front line."

"And what, they expect us to just take this lying down? Get me that medical report in the next hour, I'll send it up to the goddamn army council _myself_ if I have to!" the commander raged.

"Yes sir," the corpsman replied, without any more or less enthusiasm than normal.

It was effectively the end of the conversation, but the commander lingered, stewing, groping in vain for more curses to call down, for something or someone new that he could use to vent his wrath. But there was only the steady work of the medical attendant and the sight of the patient he was working on. Androids were durable things, their endoskeleton a composite steel alloy, synthflesh a mixture of fibrous tissues. Combat models were especially tough, cut from top-shelf materials that could resist and heal damage at a higher rate than their noncombat counterparts. But even combat-grade synthflesh was no match for a garrote wire wielded with surgical precision, and a high-impact blow - substandard materials notwithstanding - could rupture tissues, damage internal systems, or deform an endoskeleton.

Two hours' walk from the second-line camp, the twins' boots crunched in the asphalt of the decaying road as they walked, their steps in time with one another. They were once again subsumed within the silence of the empty world, with no companion to fill the void but one another.

In time, Devola's hand brushed against Popola's own. "Sorry, sis," she murmured.

Popola's hand grasped at her sister's, squeezing firmly. "It wasn't your fault," Popola said softly.

"Well yeah, but I can still feel sorry," Devola said, squeezing back. When Popola dropped her hand she lifted her own to her twin's shoulder. "At least I got two good memories out of it, huh?" she tried to joke, smiling. 

Despite herself, despite everything, Popola's mouth curled slightly. "That's not very funny," she protested lightly.

"Yeah, I've had better," Devola agreed.

At some point in the past, a river had cut a canyon through the land and someone - maybe it had been humans, maybe it had been androids - had built a bridge to span the gulf. As they reached the threshold where the steel frame met the foundation, Devola lowered her hand to knock her fist against her sister's elbow. "Hey. Race you across," she said, and without any further warning dashed ahead.

"Hey! No fair!" Popola cried out, bursting into a sprint to catch up as her twin led her across the chasm towards the land on the other side.


End file.
